Blackness eats the edges of my vision, and all I can see is the chain-link fence that rises up in front of us suddenly, blocking our path, and then I’m reaching out and thwacking it so hard it begins to shake, turning around to yell, “I won!” as Hana pulls up a second behind me, gasping for breath. Both of us are laughing now, hiccuping and taking huge gulping breaths of air as we pace around in circles, trying to walk it off.
When she can finally breathe again, Hana straightens up, laughing. “I let you win,” she says, an old joke of ours.
I toe some gravel in her direction. She ducks away, shrieking. “Keep telling yourself that.”
My hair has come out of its ponytail and I wrestle it out of its elastic, flipping my head down so I get the wind on my neck. Sweat drips down into my eyes, stinging.
“Nice look.” Hana pushes me lightly and I stumble sideways, whipping my head up to swipe back at her.
She sidesteps me. There’s a gap in the chain-link fence that marks the beginning of a narrow service road. This is blocked with a low metal gate. Hana hops it and gestures for me to follow. I haven’t really been paying attention to where we are: The service drive threads down through a parking lot, a forest of industrial Dumpsters and cargo storage sheds. Beyond those is the familiar string of white square buildings, like giant teeth. This must be one of the side entrances of the lab complex. I see now that the chain-link fence is looped on top with barbed wire and marked at twenty-foot intervals with signs that all read: PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY .
“I don’t think we’re supposed to—” I start to say, but Hana cuts me off.
“Come on,” she calls out. “Live a little.”
I do a quick scan of the parking lot beyond the gate and the road behind us: no one. The small guard hut just past the gate is also empty. I lean over and peek inside. There’s a half-eaten sandwich sitting on wax paper, and a stack of books piled messily on a small desk next to an old-fashioned radio, which is spitting static and patchy bits of music into the silence. I don’t see any surveillance cameras, either, though there must be some. All the government buildings are wired. I hesitate for a second longer, then swing myself over the gate and catch up to Hana. Her eyes are lit up with excitement, and I can tell that this was her plan, and her destination, all along.
“This must be how the Invalids got in,” she says in a breathless rush, as though we’ve been talking about yesterday’s drama at the labs all this time. “Don’t you think?”
“Doesn’t seem like it would have been hard.” I’m trying to sound casual but the whole thing—the empty service road and the enormous parking lot, shimmering in the sun, the blue Dumpsters and the electrical wires zigzagging across the sky, the sparkling white slope of the lab roofs—makes me uneasy. Everything is silent and very still—frozen, almost, the way things are in a dream, or just before a major thunderstorm. I don’t want to say it to Hana, but I’d give pretty much anything to head back to Old Port, to the complex nest of familiar streets and stores.
Even though there’s no one around, I have the impression of being watched. It’s worse than the normal feeling of being observed in school and on the street and even at home, having to be cautious about what you do and say, the close, blocked-in feeling that everyone gets used to eventually.
“Yeah.” Hana kicks at the packed dirt road. A plume of dust puffs up, resettles slowly. “Pretty crappy security for a major medical facility.”
“Pretty crappy security for a petting zoo,” I say.
“I resent that.” The voice comes from behind us, and both Hana and I jump.
I spin around. The world seems to freeze for an instant.
A boy is standing behind us, arms crossed, head cocked to the side. A boy with caramel-colored skin and hair that’s a golden-brown color,
When she can finally breathe again, Hana straightens up, laughing. “I let you win,” she says, an old joke of ours.
I toe some gravel in her direction. She ducks away, shrieking. “Keep telling yourself that.”
My hair has come out of its ponytail and I wrestle it out of its elastic, flipping my head down so I get the wind on my neck. Sweat drips down into my eyes, stinging.
“Nice look.” Hana pushes me lightly and I stumble sideways, whipping my head up to swipe back at her.
She sidesteps me. There’s a gap in the chain-link fence that marks the beginning of a narrow service road. This is blocked with a low metal gate. Hana hops it and gestures for me to follow. I haven’t really been paying attention to where we are: The service drive threads down through a parking lot, a forest of industrial Dumpsters and cargo storage sheds. Beyond those is the familiar string of white square buildings, like giant teeth. This must be one of the side entrances of the lab complex. I see now that the chain-link fence is looped on top with barbed wire and marked at twenty-foot intervals with signs that all read: PRIVATE PROPERTY. NO TRESPASSING. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY .
“I don’t think we’re supposed to—” I start to say, but Hana cuts me off.
“Come on,” she calls out. “Live a little.”
I do a quick scan of the parking lot beyond the gate and the road behind us: no one. The small guard hut just past the gate is also empty. I lean over and peek inside. There’s a half-eaten sandwich sitting on wax paper, and a stack of books piled messily on a small desk next to an old-fashioned radio, which is spitting static and patchy bits of music into the silence. I don’t see any surveillance cameras, either, though there must be some. All the government buildings are wired. I hesitate for a second longer, then swing myself over the gate and catch up to Hana. Her eyes are lit up with excitement, and I can tell that this was her plan, and her destination, all along.
“This must be how the Invalids got in,” she says in a breathless rush, as though we’ve been talking about yesterday’s drama at the labs all this time. “Don’t you think?”
“Doesn’t seem like it would have been hard.” I’m trying to sound casual but the whole thing—the empty service road and the enormous parking lot, shimmering in the sun, the blue Dumpsters and the electrical wires zigzagging across the sky, the sparkling white slope of the lab roofs—makes me uneasy. Everything is silent and very still—frozen, almost, the way things are in a dream, or just before a major thunderstorm. I don’t want to say it to Hana, but I’d give pretty much anything to head back to Old Port, to the complex nest of familiar streets and stores.
Even though there’s no one around, I have the impression of being watched. It’s worse than the normal feeling of being observed in school and on the street and even at home, having to be cautious about what you do and say, the close, blocked-in feeling that everyone gets used to eventually.
“Yeah.” Hana kicks at the packed dirt road. A plume of dust puffs up, resettles slowly. “Pretty crappy security for a major medical facility.”
“Pretty crappy security for a petting zoo,” I say.
“I resent that.” The voice comes from behind us, and both Hana and I jump.
I spin around. The world seems to freeze for an instant.
A boy is standing behind us, arms crossed, head cocked to the side. A boy with caramel-colored skin and hair that’s a golden-brown color,
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